AURANGABAD, JUNE 6: The much touted tanker-free village project, launched by the previous Shiv Sena-BJP government, at an estimated cost over Rs 1,400 crore, has run into troubled waters with the Democratic Front Government deciding to go slow on the project work.While most schemes under the project have been completed in some districts of parts of Western Maharashtra, like Sangli, not even 25 of the work has yet began in Marathwada, officials said.Contractors involved in the project said they have not been paid ever since the Congress-NCP Government took over reins in the State. The Government treasury here has been unofficially instructed not to clear any cheques bearing an amount of more than Rs 10 lakh, sources in the construction company said.As a result these companies have not dared to go ahead with the work at their hands, fearing that the Government may dump the whole project itself, soon.Officials at the Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran, the implementing authority, talking to The Indian Express said nearly 1,406 different schemes had been taken up in as many as 3,047 villages in the eight districts of Marathwada, under the project.Earlier, most government drinking water projects would try to draw water from wells and streams flowing around the village or dig borewells. However, such projects often turned out to be a stopgap arrangement. In absence of adequate funds, it was impossible to lay pipelines over long distances to reach perennial raw water sources, located far away from the villages.The `tanker free scheme', aimed to fulfill this very gap through a huge flow of funds to rural areas.
